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“All right, then name it!”
“I want you or whoever it was that came into our camp, burned it to the ground and killed a good number of our men, to walk out the front door of the house. You’ll come with us and the rest of your people will live.”
“What makes you think I have any idea about what you’re talking about?”
Dianne could nearly hear the man’s deathly smile in his reply. “Not many folks left in these parts. Someone who can snipe one of my men at a decent distance and wound a second is even rarer. Plus, I recognize that old coot’s voice from the camp. You can keep her; just send out your leader and we’ll be on our way!”
Tina looked over at Dianne and whispered. “You know it’s a trap, right?”
Dianne’s eyebrows shot up and she shook her head at Tina. “No kidding; you think so?! What do I look like, stupid?” Tina laughed heartily at the response, then Dianne continued. “No, I don’t even think he’s serious about wanting someone to come out.”
Tina’s laugh vanished and a serious expression came over her. “You think he’s stalling for something?”
“Mom?”
Dianne turned to look over at Mark on the other side of the bedroom. “What’s up?”
“A few of the guys out to the side of the house just ran from the trees they were hiding behind.”
“Ran? Ran where?”
“Off into the woods far enough that I can’t see them anymore.”
“He’s right, Dianne.” Sarah was the next to speak. “There goes another one.”
“Oh hell’s bells.” Tina groaned. “They’re taking off out front, too. Looks like three moving farther around to the side.”
“Well?” The voice from out front came again, and Dianne called back.
“Oh yeah, sure. We’ll get right on that!” Her words were dripping with sarcasm and she whispered to Tina. “If they’re surrounding us then they’re probably just going to start firing wildly trying to hit us.” She turned to look at Mark and Sarah. “You two, get on the floor and crawl to the hallway, then get downstairs. Don’t let them see you, okay? I want Mark at the front peeking through the cracks on the side windows and Sarah looking out through the cracks at the back door. As soon as I open fire, I want you two to shoot anything that moves.”
Mark and Sarah nodded, dropped to their hands and knees and began shuffling out of the bedroom and down the hall. Dianne turned back to Tina once they were gone. “Time for round two. Think they’ll give up once we kill a few more of them?”
“Not a chance.” Tina shook her head. “It’s not just about revenge for saving me or destroying their camp anymore. You wounded their pride and they want retribution for that.”
A flare of orange light caught Dianne’s eye and she looked out the window into the woods, gasping in horror at the sight. No less than five flames had simultaneously appeared amongst the trees, and they were rapidly bobbing across the ground as the men carrying them charged forward, shouting at the tops of their lungs. Dianne turned back to the window and fired off a few shots at the men, but a burst of fire from the trees drove her back as bullets thudded against the siding of the house. With no way to stop the men, she watched from the edge of the window as the flames soared through the air, arcing toward her home.
Chapter 8
Washington, D.C.
“Stop!” The shout came from behind Ostap and he spun around, shrugging the rifle off of his shoulder and preparing to fire on the new threat when he saw the forms of Oles and Jacob behind him. “Don’t shoot them!”
“How—how did you get here so fast?” Ostap was nearly at a loss for words, his head still spinning from the fight that had just concluded.
“We were near the front gate when we heard the gunfire, so we came in.” Both Oles and Jacob shrugged sheepishly.
“Hey!” Carl shouted from inside the building, and Ostap and the two technicians looked at him. “Can you save the question and answer session for later, maybe? These three look more than a little bit trigger happy!”
In the doorway, Rick glanced at Jane and Dr. Evans, surprised to hear an American colloquialism from someone who was very clearly a foreign agent. He could still see the second man standing outside and there were two more who had appeared, but none of the four looked like they were about to open fire, so he took a nervous step out into the hall. The bodies of the MS-13 members were strewn about the floor, the air heavy with the smell of gunpowder and blood. Rick swallowed hard as he tried not to look at the corpses, addressing the man closest to him instead.
“My name’s Rick Waters. Who are you and why are you here?” The question seemed simple and childlike in the face of such overwhelming death and destruction, but it was the only one that made sense to ask.
“I’m—”
“My name,” said one of the men outside the building, who stepped inside without raising his hands, “is Oles Belov. We don’t mean you and your group any harm.”
Rick motioned at the bodies on the floor with his rifle. “Could have fooled me.”
